The Herald Courier of Bristol, Va., a small paper in the coalfields of Appalachia, beat out journalism's powerhouses to win the Pulitzer Prize for public service Monday for uncovering a scandal in which Virginia landowners were deprived of millions in natural gas royalties.

Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell (Back Bay, $15.99, reprint). USA TODAY's Bob Minzesheimer called Blink an "intriguing exploration" of how, at a glance, we can understand the essence of something.

Several tests have shown preliminary promise in recent research into how people can make themselves happier not just for a day or two, but long-term. It's part of a larger body of work that challenges a long-standing skepticism about whether that's even possible.

It's a long way from the Manhattan office of psychoanalyst Sherman Pheiffer to the Cambridge, Mass., practice of psychologist Jaine Darwin. But both are in blue states that voted heavily for John Kerry, and on the day he conceded, they heard plenty of distress about the election.

In coffee shops, on commuter trains and over breakfasts of high-fructose corn syrup crunch, millions of people have no doubt pointed to the Martha Stewart headlines the past few days and made some snarky remark like, "See? That shows you that money can't buy happiness."